Avian Community Structure in Cattle Sheds of Punjab and Haryana

The present study was conducted to find out whether cattle sheds could support the bird diversity. To perform the research, cattle sheds were selected from three villages each from district Ludhiana (Punjab) and Jind (Haryana), point count method was used for the collection of the data. A total of 56 avian species were recorded from the selected cattle sheds, classified into 13 orders and 32 families. Order Passeriformes was most dominant constitute 39.29% of total identified species followed by Pelecaniformes, Columbiformes, Coraciiformes, Accipitriformes, Charadriiformes, Piciformes, Bucerotiformes, Cuculiformes, Gruiformes, Psittaciformes and Galliformes, Strigiformes. From the recorded avian fauna 44 species were observed from cattle sheds of Punjab and 50 bird species were observed from the cattle sheds of Haryana with similarity index 0.679. The majority of the birds visiting cattle sheds were insectivorous (32.14%), followed by omnivorous, carnivorous, granivorous, frugivorous and nectarivorous which shows the presence of abundance of insects. However, presence of birds of different feeding guilds shows that cattle sheds provide a diverse range of food and suitable habitat to birds.